AVES ISLAND. 217 



cession of the island now under consideration, that it appears to him 

 that Venezuela, on her own sole responsibility, did by that contract 

 voluntarily transfer, for good consideration, to a citizen of the United 

 States, in their full usufruct, as against any foreign power whatsoever 

 possessory claims in that island she may have set up, be the same in. 

 her own judgment greater or less, and that therefore upon any view 

 of her case, the proposed cession of the island to Holland, is objection- 

 able, and the undersigned again hereby makes known that such cession, 

 if it be made, must take place, subject to all and singular the rights 

 and claims in the premises of the government of the United States, 

 and of any and all of its citizens against whomsoever the same may 

 concern." 



These two notes of the 24th of September, 1855, and of the 8th of 

 March, 1856, were repeatedly referred to by the undersigned in his 

 note of the 20th of December last, and such having been from the first 

 and up to the present time the recorded and steadily-maintained posi- 

 tion of the undersigned and of the government of the United States as 

 to the rights and claims of the present claimants in their relations to 

 the two contracts now alleged by the Hon. Mr. Gutierrez in. bar of 

 their claim, the undersigned is entirely unable to comprehend the 

 motive and policy of the honorable minister of foreign relations in 

 making that allegation, accompanied, as it is, by a total suppression 

 of this most complete and effectual reservation made by their govern- 

 ment and by the undersigned in their behalf. The undersigned can- 

 not indulge any disrespectful doubt that the Hon. Mr. Gutierrez 

 clearly perceived that this reservation wholly annihilates the force of 

 his allegation of these contracts, and utterly precludes it from having 

 any force against this claim. As introduced and insisted upon by the 

 Hon. Mr. Gutierrez, it can tend only to convince the government of 

 the United States even more fully and completely that Venezuela has 

 against this claim no valid defense. Had any such valid defense ex- 

 isted in the case, then surely the ability of the Hon. Mr. Gutierrez 

 would never have felt itself constrained to allege a defense so wholly 

 invalid and unfounded as this, the very presentation of which has 

 required the total suppression of the most important and conspicuous 

 fact appearing in the whole negotiation, and which suppression was 

 sure to encounter at the hands of the undersigned this swift and signal 

 and conclusive exposure. 



The Hon. Mr. Gutierrez, without one word of proof or argument 

 to sustain his statement, has alleged ' ^ that the island of Aves be- 

 longed to the republic before 1854, as the successor of Spain who dis- 

 covered it." This allegation at this time was not expected by the 

 undersigned, who has from the first maintained before the government 

 of Venezuela that any pretension of Venezuelan title to the Aves prior 

 to 1854, has no sufficient foundation to justify discussion. Continued 

 research upon this point has fully confirmed the undersigned in this 

 emphatic view, and he desires that the observations now submitted by 

 him on the subject may be considered exclusively in that sense. 



Before entering upon an examination of the proposition of Mr. 

 Gutierrez, above cited, it is proper to notice the undisputed facts 



